F69 
.B77 





Class i_t^L 

Book__^__n 



EXTRACT 
FROM A DISCOURSE 




c 




REV, j: s. buckminster 



PREACHED IN THE CHURCH IN BRATTLE SQUARE, BOSTON, 



October, 1§11, 



THE SABBATH AFTER THE INTERMENT 



HON. JAMES BOWDOIN. 



ALBANY: 
PRINTED BY JOEL MUNSELL. 

1'^ ^ 1848. 



Bit 



EXTRACT. 



The language of the Psalmist in the text^ 
has appeared to me not unappropriate to the 
circumstances of him whose distressing death 
has clothed so many of the present worshippers 
in sackcloth. Surely, if any man among us 
may be said to have had ample experience of 
the pains, infirmities, and vanity of this mortal 
life, and at the same time ample means of esti- 
mating its real value, it was the departed Mr. 
BowDOiN. From the heart he might have said 
with David, "thou hast made my days as a 
handbreadth, and mine age is as nothing before 
thee: Surely every man at his best estate is 
altogether vanity : Surely every man walketh 
in a vain shew ; surely he is disquieted in vain ; 

* Psalm xxxix. 5th and 6th verses. 



he heapeth up riches and knoweth not who 
shall gather them." I fancy that I hear him 
crying out with the king of Israel in the midst 
of his infirmities and sufferings, "Lord, make 
me to know mine end, and the measure of my 
days, what it is ; that I may know how frail I 
am! O spare me, that I may recover strength 
before I go hence and am here no more ! I am 
a stranger with thee and a sojourner, as all my 
fathers were . . . My hope is in thee !" 

The birth, family, education, and various 
events in the life of Mr. Bowdoin are so well 
known among us, that it would be superfluous 
on this occasion to collect memoranda of his 
life, or to enter into any regular detail of his 
character. Neither would it be expected of me 
by his family, except as a voluntary offering to 
the curiosity of the audience. But the heredi- 
tary interest which he has always manifested 
for this society, the large share which his family 
have contributed to its good estate, and particu- 
larly his remembrance of our poor in his will,=^ 

tMr. Bowdoin, among other bequests in his will, \eh Jifty 
pounds to the Church in Brattle Square and Jifty to the 
Pastor. 



would demand of me some tribute of public 
acknowledgement, even if this claim were not 
reinforced as it is in the mind of the speaker by 
a deep sense of personal obligation, and an un- 
interrupted course of kindness from him and 
his afflicted consort. 

God, in whose hands is the entire disposal 
of our lot in life, was pleased to give our de- 
parted and respected friend a long experience 
of some of the severest pains and trying infirmi- 
ties of humanity. In the midst of continual 
admonitions of his mortality, while he every 
day felt the waste of his life, and was tempted 
at intervals to exclaim, why is this remnant left 
to him who is in misery, the deaths in his family 
pressed more closely upon him the thought of 
his own departure. Yet was he never more 
actively engaged than during the few last years 
of his life, in employments of which every man 
will acknowledge the utility, and of which his 
country will reap the benefit. He was finding 
in the pursuits of agriculture, and in the intel- 
lectual as well as active exertions of a very in- 
dustrious life, a degree of satisfaction, which is 
often sought in vain in the pleasures of sense, 
the tumults of faction, the career of public life, 



or the retreats of solitude and luxurious indo- 
lence. If God had been pleased to spare him 
longer, every day, I doubt not, would have 
rendered his life more valuable and desirable, 
as it does that of every man who lives in the 
exercise of a conscientious and willing benefi- 
cence; but at the same time the pang of separa- 
tion and the regret of the community would 
have been proportionably increased. Now his 
days are past, his purposes are broken off, may 
God so order it that his worthy designs shall be 
promoted, his good intentions be carried into 
complete effect, and all that blessing be diflused 
which himself would have been desirous to see, 
and to which he would have been ready and 
happy to contribute ! 

Mourners ! ye too are strangers and sojourn- 
ers on the earth, as all your fathers were. For- 
get not how many of them died persuaded of 
the promises, and embraced them afar off; de- 
sirous of a better country, even an heavenly. 
Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their 
God. Their faith follow then, remembering the 
end of their conversation; and may it please 
God, that they without you shall not be made 
perfect ! 



But I see before me an object* which ad- 
monishes us that the usual time of service has 
elapsed, while we have been speaking of him 
whose name it bears. Once it reminded us of 
his bounty; now it reminds us of his departure. 
Once it told us that he remembered us; now 
it calls on us to remember him. Lately it 
measured the handbreadth of his age, as it now 
measures our own ; . . . but to him hours, and 
weeks, and days, and years revolve no more ! 
He has entered on an unmeasurable period ! 

How fair an emblem is this of man himself; 
always passing on, yet unconscious of his own 
motion! When we fix our attention on the 
moment which is passing, we seem to arrest it. 
"We discern no lapse. All appears stationary; 
and the time is long and tedious. But let us 
withdraw our attention from the dial, and yield 
ourselves for a few moments to the usual suc- 
cession of thoughts, and when we return again 
to examine the index of our time, what a space 
has been traversed ! 

*The former clock in the Church in Brattle Square was 
given by Governor Bowdoin ; but as it was old and much 
out of repair, the late Mr. Bowdoin replaced it not long before 
his death by the present time-piece. 



Is it possible that a minute can be made to 
appear so long by attention ? How long then 
might the whole of life be made to appear, would 
we but attend to it, and vigilantly mark and 
improve the hours ! . . . But that steady monitor 
proceeds, whether we mark or not its motion. 
Here, in the place of our solemnities, it measures 
off some of the most important portions of life. 
Presently the shadows of the evening will rest 
on this holy place, and this house be emptied 
of its worshippers. Presently, after a few more 
revolutions of those unconscious indexes, not 
one of these worshippers will be heard of on 
earth. The places which now know them will 
know them no more forever; and when it is 
asked, where are they; the answer must be, 
they are gone to appear before God ! 

Lord, make us to know the measure of our 
days ... to mark the shadow of our lives ! For 
man that is born of a woman fleeth as a shadow 
and continueth not. 




